Michel,I feel ill at easy in small spaces so my aim was to make the interior feel as big as possible. This has worked quite well. It feels very spacious when sitting inside. This feeling of openness will further improve when I cut the windows and can look out, however I may lose some of this feeling when the cushions go in. All in all for the length and type of boat I'm very happy with the way it is working out so far.

I know that the voices in my head aint real, but they have some pretty good ideas.There is no such thing as a quick fix and I've never had free lunch!

Just completed the second last task before I can start fairing the main hull. I have just made a second forestay attachment to attach a dacron jib on a continuous line furler. This is only for cruising and twilight racing so I wanted the fitting out of the way when racing.

Rolf,This fitting was in addition to what is in the plans.M12 shackle with 12mm dia ss rod.It is not intended to take the full rig load although I think it strong enough. It will always have the forestay as per the plans holding the mast up. This will just have the cruising jib on the furler that can go up or down without taking the mast down. It will be vary handy negotiating all the twists and turns to get from the local waterway to the open sea. Being able to unfurl when the wind is in your favour and furl up when not. I'd even use it when sailing down to Pittwater for a race. It will help save the race sails for actual racing.

Last edited by phill; 10/29/1506:30 PM.

I know that the voices in my head aint real, but they have some pretty good ideas.There is no such thing as a quick fix and I've never had free lunch!

I have just started the process of fairing the outside of the main hull.When looking along the hull all that I can see out of place is the joins in the glass due to the overlaps. It is very straight, even better than the floats were at this stage.But one never really knows until the paint is on. Rather than take the risk I decided to just do what I did with the floats. There are a couple pics below that show the first 4.5hrs work. It really pays to be very neat and methodical when applying the beading and this takes time, in fact if done right, it takes more time than sanding it off. I've applied beading to the port side of the hull from the gunwale to approx W/L. I used 1.5kg of resin and around 500gms of filler.Later today I will rotate the hull some more and do the rest to the C/L.

I'm fairly certain that nearly all of this will be sanded off , time will tell.

Rolf,I think you are right.I even enjoyed the fairing of the floats. It took me 4 hours to get the beading on each side of each float and only 1.5 hours to long board it off each side. I then applied filler with spring steel blade in such thin coats that it took 4 applications until any remaining beading could not to be seen. I'd alternate the application between plus and minus 45 deg angle between coats when putting it on. This worked great at getting a very flat finish. This meant almost no sanding. Just a light rub between coats with orbital sander to take off any dags. The floats are undercoated and they look perfect. (The top coat will tell the full story.) The main hull will be a lot more work but only because it has much greater surface area. I realised when fairing the floats how much work I saved by taking my time in placing the foam in the mould so I was even more careful with the main hull. The real secret in getting the foam right was the building of the oven to evenly heat the foam. I tried the hot air gun method and could not get the foam to bend as evenly through the curves as I'd like. A couple of friends dropped around and decided to build the simple oven with stuff I had lying around and some ceramic heaters that I'd bought years before. Then I experimented with temperature and found the Corecell M80 foam formed its shape best at around 105 deg C. Lower and it would not bend evenly and higher , say 112 deg C, and it would tend to cup along the edges. The supplier had told me to heat it to 80 -90 deg C. It will bend at that temp but not evenly. You end up with a lot of flats and sharp curves on what should be a smooth radius. It really pays to get the foam stage right. It is so much more pleasant than filling and sanding later. I suppose it is all a part of the Zen of boat building.

Last edited by phill; 11/14/1504:34 PM.

I know that the voices in my head aint real, but they have some pretty good ideas.There is no such thing as a quick fix and I've never had free lunch!

This is the way it went:-First I ran a random orbital sander with 120grit over it and that removed any marks left in the resin by creases in the vacuum film and tapered the taping along the gunwale. Then I covered the hull with beading (resin + Q cells). That took 2kg of resin. I sanded the beading off with a long board. That took a total of 5 hours. Beading was left in the hollows, maybe 500gms. The first pass of fairing compound took 1250gms of resin and the second around 350gms of resin. I followed this with a skim coat of "S Fair" as it is good at filling any pin holes. It is now ready for painting. I'll start on the stbd side tomorrow.

Last edited by phill; 11/23/1506:15 AM.

I know that the voices in my head aint real, but they have some pretty good ideas.There is no such thing as a quick fix and I've never had free lunch!

Luiz- that is great that you also check in to see what I'm up to. I'm enjoying the task and if others can benefit that is just an added bonus.

I put the beading on the stbd side yesterday.

The forecast today is for a temp of 38deg C (100F). Sounds like a good day to let the resin in the beading cure. A bit hot to be on the end of a long board- tomorrow however with 23degC sounds more like a long boarding day. The pic shows one of several longboards. I used this one to fair a set of 32ft cedar strip hulls that I built back in 89. Since then I have also acquire an air sander that is very handy to get things down a bit when starting the long boarding.

I've almost finihed needing my notched trowel. I made it when I had to fair the foats. Easy to notch a plastic trowel. It has notches 5mmx5mm with 30mm between centres. Due to the angle it has to be held to make the fairing compound stick it makes a notch 5mm wide and approx 2mm high. Does not sound like much but with all the frames CNC cut and careful placing of the foam has proven to be sufficient.

Rolf,That pic was made just for illustration as the resin had already cured and the trowel cleaned off with vinegar. I have a friend that had been at me for years to use vinegar but I assumed it wouldn't work. Turns out vinegar is a great cleaning agent for epoxy and at $1 per litre at the local supermarket it won't break the bank and much safer to use than a solvent, especially if you get epoxy on your skin. You can also stand your brushes in vinegar and the epoxy won't go off but you do need to wash all the vinegar out before reusing them so I use acetone just for this. I have a tall jar with a lid and acetone and stand my brushes in that. The lid stops the acetone from evaporating and I can just remove excess acetone by wiping them before reusing.I'm using bote-cote epoxy for fairing and some other applications but not laminating (too thick). The standard bote-cote does not develop amine blush and this is just so convenient. I have used Gurit resin for all the laminating and structural work. Over the years I have used a number of diff resins and much prefer this as a laminating resin. I'm also using disposable Nitrile gloves . $10 for 100 pair at the local hardware store.

Last edited by phill; 11/27/1503:18 PM.

I know that the voices in my head aint real, but they have some pretty good ideas.There is no such thing as a quick fix and I've never had free lunch!

I'm getting close to finishing the fairing of the outside of the main hull.I'm really happy with the way it is turning out and the amount of resin I have used.I just need to longboard the stbd side lower section to the keel and do the skim coats of filler. See pic below.

One of the things about fairing that does annoy me is the cleaning out of containers to mix up the fairing compound. Ice cream containers are good to use, but we don't eat enough ice cream to have an endless supply. To avoid having to clean one out for every fairing session I have been putting the one I just used in a plastic bag and into the freezer at the end of the session. The cold temp stops the residue in the container from curing. So when I need it I just take it out and mix another batch. By the time the batch is mixed the old residue has warmed up enough to be workable and goes on with the new mix. Some people also do this when they mix too much resin and don't want to throw the excess away. The only catch is that you can't leave it too long before it goes into the freezer.

Rolf,I put it in the bottom draw of the freezer. Not sure if she even knows as it has not been discussed, hopefully it will stay that way.

Anyway this phase is now finished.

My next step is to flip the main hull onto its roof and use the bottom as a mould to make a cradle (bucket) that it is going to sit in when on the trailer. It is all a part of the fun,believe it or not, it is good fun.